Hospital in Oswestry voted one of the best in the UK

Outstanding patient feedback has seen Oswestry’s orthopaedic hospital highlighted by a health watchdog as one of the very best hospitals in the country.

Subscribe to our daily newsletter

The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital

The Care Quality Commission (CQC), which monitors, regulates and inspects health and social care services in England, has published the results of the latest national adult inpatient survey.

And the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital (RJAH) has been named as one of just eight organisations placed in the top band of trusts delivering results that are considered "much better than expected", with patient experience that is substantially better than elsewhere.

RJAH is also classed as "much better" in both medical care and surgery.

The trust – which received positive responses to 81 per cent of the questions in the annual survey and negative responses to eight per cent – can actually point to the best overall set of results in the country.

Delighted

Mark Brandreth, chief executive, said: “The adult inpatient survey is a very important and very powerful tool, as it is a strong measure of exactly what our patients think about us.

“It covers everything from the clinical care we provide to how clean the wards are and how good the food is, so it really is a comprehensive analysis of everything we do.

“I am delighted with the results we have received this year, which reflects the commitment of our staff to delivering world-class care.

Advertising

“We will not be complacent – and we will use these results to not only celebrate the good, but also to highlight areas where we can and will do better still.”

The adult inpatient survey includes 144 NHS acute trusts in the country, and this year reveals what nearly 77,000 adults who had stayed in hospital for at least one night during July last year said about the care they received. It asked people to give their opinions on the care they received, including quality of information and communication with staff, whether they were given enough privacy, the amount of support given to help them eat and drink and assist with personal hygiene, and on their discharge arrangements.

A total of 1,245 were asked to complete the survey at RJAH and 834 returned it.

This equates to a response rate of 67 per cent – well above the national average of 45 per cent.

Advertising

Cleanliness

Highlights in this year’s results include the hospital’s food being rated by patients as the best in the country for the 13th time in the last 14 years.

The hospital also hits top spot for the cleanliness of its wards and all other areas.

Patients also rated the confidence they placed in both its doctors and nurses treating them as the second best in the country. It achieved the same ranking in the question asking patients to score their overall experience out of 10, with RJAH achieving an average score of 9.1.

Sarah Bloomfield, interim director of nursing, said: “It is fantastic to see the professionalism and expertise of our staff recognised in this survey. I am immensely proud of the care our staff deliver day in, day out for the benefit of our patients.

“In a year that has also seen the Trust achieve an inspection rating of ‘good’ from the CQC, this is another positive indicator that should be celebrated.”“We know we still have more to do, and this report also shows we still have challenges around patient discharge and reducing noise at night for our patients. We will continue aiming to learn and to improve.”